Free Will

Free Will

Hi Michael:  I am enjoying our conversation about free will.  However, I detect from the tone of your replies that you are upset about the course I am taking to review your discourse on the presence or absence of free will in humans. 

In my basic scientific training, I was taught to perform thought experiments.  First, formulate a hypothesis through discussion about what we already know, and then search the literature to see if we could answer the question without doing any experiments.  If it has already been done, why repeat it?  Usually, the answer was available, and then we would formulate a new hypothesis, and so on, until we arrived at a question for which there was no answer.  We would then do that experiment.

As David Brooks said recently, “Scientific inquiry requires candor, intellectual rigor, and a willingness to follow an idea to its logical conclusion.”  I agree.

So, to me, you are talking about the intersection of philosophy and neuroscience.  I am an expert on neither.  As a result, I defaulted to my training.  I have attempted to survey the terrain of a centuries-old debate, so as to get up to some semblance of speed on this issue.  The ground is well-trampled in this area of inquiry, and I was not sure there was anything new worth saying on this issue.  But, science marches on, and it doesn’t hurt to keep an open mind.  So, if I can do a thought experiment, and then look to science for data to support or reject it, I will.  Thus, this attitude results in my methods, which seem to irritate you.  So be it.  I reserve the right to exercise my free will, and perform my actions my way.

First, I believe that consciousness and free will co-exist, if they exist at all.  If a quality, such as consciousness, cannot be quantified using current scientific tools, (temporal location in space, temperature, mass, velocity, etc.) does it nevertheless exist, even if there is no objective proof?   
 I say yes.

I have done a brief, on-line survey, and list a sampling of what I found. 


Definitions of Free Will include:

Free Will:  Consciousness in action.

Free Will: Conscious generation of intentions, choices, or decisions.

Free Will:  The power to change the world according to our intentions.

Free Will: The capacity to produce one’s own behavior.

The human activity of planning implies free will.  Humans clearly make choices.

Scientific experiments studying decisions made over a short time-frame, such as finger-twitch experiments, are not the same as studying free will decisions made over many hours or days of study and reflection.

This last one, which I believe to be true, goes to the heart of current neuro-scientific research into decision making.  While this research is interesting, I am not convinced it studies the problem at hand, rather it studies what can be quantified at this stage in scientific evolution.  It is looking where the light is, rather than where the problem is.

So, what do I know?  One area of interest of mine has been the genetics of memory.  I believe there are two types of behavior:  genetic behavior and conscious behavior.  Several years ago, I discussed this observation with a psychiatrist friend of mine.  His response:  “How can you tell the difference?”  Good question.  I think genetic behavior is what you are referring to when you say our behavior is determined by our Sphere of Influence.  I am here referring to unconscious behavior.  My favorite analogy for this kind of behavior is the ant colony.  Ants exhibit many group behaviors which favor the colony, but not the individual ant.  How can this be?  I believe the group-oriented behavior is coded in their genes, and they cannot act otherwise. 

After studying Francis Crick’s work on consciousness, I have come to the conclusion that human-lifetime memories, as well as genetic memories, are stored in DNA molecules located in specialized brain cells.  As we know from studies of brain energetics, approximately 90% of energy expenditure of the human brain goes towards unconscious and subconscious processes involved in the activity and maintenance of the body, with the other 10% available for conscious thought.  So, for me, if you want to say that the preponderance of brain neural activity is unconscious, I would agree.  I would also insist that 10% is available for conscious decisions based on facts over time.  Do many people not avail themselves of this potential planning activity?  Sure.  So, is your analysis mostly right?  Sure, most of the time.  Is conscious planning/free will available to most humans most of the time?  I say yes.

Hope this helps, Robert